Local News in Brief : ZZZZ Best Figure Gets 18-Month Term
Jack N. Polevoi, who admitted laundering more than half a million dollars from ZZZZ Best through Las Vegas casinos in the days before the Reseda carpet cleaning company collapsed, was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison.
Polevoi, who along with his twin brother, Jerry, also pleaded guilty to stock fraud for selling $225,000 worth of ZZZZ Best shares based on an inside tip that company founder Barry Minkow was resigning, said he was taken in by Minkow’s assurances that investors’ money would be paid back.
“When I came back from Las Vegas, I still believed the jerk. I believed that he was still honorable,” Polevoi, his voice breaking with emotion, told U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian.
The judge, who also imposed five years’ probation, was critical of the Polevois’ gambling spree in Las Vegas with $712,000 in ZZZZ Best corporate funds and bank loans, comparing it to “looting from the dead.”
Jerry Polevoi has not yet been sentenced.
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